Edexcel AS History Unit 1

My colleague (who teaches the Unit - both Russia topics in our case) and I are feeling more and more baffled by the requirements for Unit 1 as each exam series passes - we have had able candidates getting Us, and weak candidates getting high grades. The markscheme makes sense in itself, but doesn't seem to tally with what our students write when we get scripts back (and yet on appeal no marks have been changed). The 'good examples' in the examiners' report are clearly good, but don't seem that much better than our candidates' answers, so that we can't articulate to them or to each other what the difference is. A course that I went to earlier in the year gave an example of a Russian script that got full marks - but it was from a student who used a computer, and therefore wrote far, far more than anyone would normally manage in 40 minutes - so ultimately not much help.

So that's our tale of woe - I'm not sure what would help....but I guess anything people have used with students, particularly in terms of exemplar material, would be hugely appreciated! We've got the Hodder/Edexcel revision books, which seem good, but feel as if we are going into the summer somewhat blind - which isn't fun..

Completely agree on all counts from my own experience of the Russia course. I sometimes find the indicative content a little bizarre in places and I also objected to Edexcel about the quality of an exemplar in their summer 2011 examiners' report (they ultimately admitted on their forum that they had made a mistake and it had not got the mark they had indicated), but generally I agree that the mark scheme makes sense. Like you though, it doesn't always tally with what students write when we get scripts back.

So while I don't have a lot to offer in terms of exemplar material, I think the main overriding point to be made is that you're not alone and frankly I also lack confidence in the marking of this particular unit. I'd love to be able to discuss the occasional script with someone from Edexcel and find out what they're seeing when they read it, as the marking does appear a little hit or miss at times.